Out and about in Julian Alps

One afternoon a few days ago, while Jude was relaxing at the campsite in Bled, I decided to go for a walk up Galetovec. It didn't look too far on the map but it was quite high up, 1265 meters! Therein lay the problem, an ascent of 765 meters (bled is already at 500 meters) over a short distance means one hell of a steep climb. I got back 5 hours later and could hardly walk! But the views from the top were worth it:


In the photo below you can see Bled lake in the distance, which is where I started from. After this walk I realised I'm not quite ready for Triglav yet (which is over 2800 meters):


Another day was spent cycling up the Vrta valley to the foot of the northern face of Triglav (just to have a look). On the way you get to see this waterfall. The drop you can see is 52 meters. You might just be able to make out the person standing on the right, behind the waterfall under the over hanging rock about midway down:


And this was the view of Triglav when we got to the top of the valley. To be truthfull, we didn't cycle all of the way, it got a bit steep so we went back and got the scooter out of the van and went up on that, which struggled a bit with the two of us on it on the 1 in 4 sections of the gravel road!


Yesterday we drove to Bovec which meant going over the Vrsic pass. The highest point on the road is 1611 meters and you won't believe to way the road twists unless you see it. In a 4.2 tonne motorhome which isn't far off 8 meters long it was a bit scary in places. We eventually go to the top and made it down safely to Bovec, but just look at the view from the highest point on the road:


So we are still in Bovec today but it hasn't stopped raining since yesterday evening. When we parked up the spot we chose was nice and dry but we woke up to find we were in the middle of a small lake. At least the site has wifi and the weather forecast for tomorrow is sunshine! We won't hold our breath for that though!

Messing about on the water

Just got back from rowing on the lake. Jude tried her best bless her and for a while she did quite well:



But eventually her arms tired and I had to take over. Like my new hat? We nearly rolled the boat both reaching for it at the same time after a gust of wind blew it off my head into the lake!



How smug does Jude look being rowed back from the island? She was supposed to be rowing me!



And it's started raining again now, oh well!

Strolling round lake Bled and up to the castle

Well the sun is shining and it's a glorious day so we've been for a walk round lake Bled today, it not a big lake and only takes about an hour and half to walk all the way around. It's very picturesque, with an island in the middle (the only island in Slovenia). Here are a couple of photos of the lake:



In the second photo above, you can probably make out the castle in the background. Here is the view from the top where it overlooks the lake:


Pretty impressive don't you think? We've just had some coffee and Slovenian cake and are heading back to the lake to hire a rowing boat so Jude can row me across to the island! LOL.

Vintgar Gorge

We spent today walking from the campsite at Bled to Vintgar Gorge and back again. There has been quite a bit of rain lately and the noise of the water rushing through the gorge was thunderous and with a layer of fine spray, almost like fog, a few meters in height above the river, the gorge had quite an atmosphere. Here are a few photos:

You can probably see from the photo below that a large portion of the walk along the gorge consists of wooden platforms clinging to the cliff walls just above the river:


OMG! While updating the blog the sun has come out for the first time since Tuesday! Right, boots back on and I'm off on another trek up the hills round the campsite before the rain starts again!

Slovenia at last!

We've been in Slovenia now for 6 days and so far it has to be the most spectacular place we have visited. We would recommend everyone visit Slovenia, but we aren't going to because we intend to come back and want the place to ourselves!

Our first stop was the Škocjan Caves Regional Park. The caves here are very impressive, the place is riddled with them too. Here is a typical view of the region taken on a walk around the Škocjan Caves visitor center (where we stayed for a few nights on the car park!):


Next stop was Predjama Castle. We can't get over just how beautiful Slovenia is. This was the view from the castle:


And here is the castle itself. There are caves behind it which were used by previous inhabitants as extra rooms, and also more caves below with secret escape routes (that aren't quite so secret these days):



It was another extremely hot day when we visited the castle but we managed to find a cool area. A stream dissapears at the foot of the cliff the castle is built into, and incredibly it is so cool down there that your breath is frosty, and of course it was beautifull too:

The coolness made Jude happy and me even more so, but at least I refrained from doing my "I've conquered the rock" impression:

We had read that the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, must be visited, so off we went. And I have to admit to being very pleasantly surprised, especially considering I hate big cities. We visited the old part of the city and really enjoyed it. What's more, it was clean, not overly crowded and had quite a bit of greenery, a city I would certainly consider going back to:

The cathederal was a big surprise too. From the outside it's pretty unassuming, but venture in through the huge and very heavy bronze doors and you are presented with this:

And the ceiling:

The city boasts a castle which we climbed up the hill to visit. Here is a photo of Jude for Kez with the city backdrop in the distance:

There are three primary bridges across the river in the old town. One of which is the dragon bridge equipped with 4 bronze dragons. This photo is especially for the father-in-law (he'll know why!):

We left Ljubljana and headed for Triglav national park and arrived at Bled yesterday. We are nicely settled into the campsite with the awning up. But so far it's done nothing but rain! We are here for a couple of weeks so let's hope the weather improves!

Italy, part 1

The first part of our Italy tour is over. After Pisa we visited Elba Island as the description in the Rough Guide to Italy painted a picture of paradise in our minds. We found the crystal clear water, but not the white sandy beaches, despite driving all around the island:

Still, we had a great time on Elba, and the highlight for me (excuse the pun) was the cable car trip up the islands highest mountain. Well, if you can call it a cable car, it turned out to be a 2 person cage. Jude was very brave:

We travelled up through the clouds and eventually reached the top. You can just see the cable car snaking down the mountain side in this photo of the view from the sumit:

After Elba it was off to Tuscany to visit some of the hill towns that this region of Italy is famous for. Almost everywhere we visited in Tuscany was like a picture post card but my favourite was Massa Marittama. Here is the view we were treated to over looking the town:

Here is a typical Tuscan hill town street, this one is in Volterra, another lovely town that we found. Staying there was free (car park #4!):

Of course, the only problem with hill towns are the steps. You just can't avoid them, and Volterra was no exception:

After trundelling around Tuscany we needed a bit of a rest from travelling so stayed for 3 days on a camp site on the side of Lake Tresimeno, a place called Passignano which is just across from Tuscany in Umbria. We where treated with this view every morning:

And as you can probably guess, I had the urge to cycle around the lake and did so on another very hot and sunny day. And yes, I ran out of water part way round and arrived back at the campsite 3 hours later totally exhausted. Mind you, it was 62 kilometers (just over 37 miles) so I don't think I did too badly!

Once I'd recovered from the mamoth cycle ride, we headed off to Venice. We were both eagerly looking forward to visting Venice and had high expectations. Admittedly I'm not really a city person, but to say I was dissapointed with Venice is an understatement! It was dirty, smelly, extremely over crowded, even more over priced, pretty much every surface reachable on foot has a degree of grafiti sprawled on it, and lots of San Marco was obscurred by scaffolding. OK, perhaps that's unfair, but it is certainly the overriding impression Venice left on us. Still, I did manage to get a few shots of how I imagined Venice would be (but I don't think I'll be going back):

After the hustle and bustle of Venice we headed off round the coast, stopping at a couple of beach resorts on the way, to our last stop before Slovenia, Trieste (the city is a bit dull but there is a free motorhome stop over area). If you are ever near this area you must visit the Grotta Gigante, the worlds largest accessible cave and the second largest natural chamber anywhere in the world. For about £5 you get a guided tour and it really is worth it. Here are a couple of photos that give you some idea but cannot convey the scale of the place:

and:

And then it's across the border to Slovenia, another place we have great expectations of...